Lars Kepler - The Sandman

His voice cracks and he looks away for a moment.

‘Do you have children?’ he asks, his voice barely audible.

Before Joona has time to lie, his phone rings in his jacket. He apologises, answers it, and hears Pollock’s soft voice explaining that Athena Promacho is hooked up.

Saga lies down on the bed with her back to the camera in the ceiling and carefully peels the silicon covering from the fibre-optic microphone. Barely moving at all, she slips it into the lining of her trousers.

Suddenly there’s an electronic buzz from the door to the dayroom – and then the lock clicks. It’s open. Saga sits up, her heart beating hard.

The microphone needs to be installed in a good position right away. She might only get one chance. She mustn’t miss it. She’ll be found out if she gets searched.

She doesn’t know what the dayroom looks like, if the other patients are in there, or if there are cameras or guards.

Maybe the room is nothing but a trap where Jurek Walter is waiting for her.

No, there’s no way he could possibly know about her mission.

Saga throws the pieces of silicon in the toilet and flushes them away, then goes over to the door, opens it a crack and hears a rhythmic throbbing sound, cheerful voices from the television and a whining, hissing noise.

She remembers Joona’s advice and forces herself to go back to her bed and sit down.

Never show any urgency, she thinks. Never do anything unless you have a valid reason for doing it, a justification.

Through the crack in the door she can hear music from the television, the hissing sound of the running machine, and heavy footsteps.

A man with a sharp, stressed voice speaks occasionally, but never gets any response.

Both patients are out there.

Saga knows she has to go in and install the microphone.

She gets up and goes over to the door again, and stands there for a while, trying to breathe slowly.

A smell of aftershave hits her.

She grasps the door handle, takes a deep breath, opens the door wide. She can hear the rhythmic thuds more clearly as she takes a couple of steps into the dayroom with her head lowered. She doesn’t know if she’s being watched, but decides to let them get used to the sight of her before looking up.

A man with a bandaged hand is sitting on the sofa in front of the television, and another is walking with long strides on the running machine. The man on the machine is facing away from her, but although she can only see his back and neck, she’s sure it’s Jurek Walter.

He’s marching along, and the sound of his rhythmic steps fills the room.

The man on the sofa belches and swallows several times, wipes the sweat from his cheeks and one of his legs starts to bounce nervously. He’s overweight, in his forties, with thin hair, a blond moustache and glasses.

‘Obrahiim,’ he mutters, staring at the television.

His leg bounces as he suddenly points at the screen.

‘There he is,’ he says loudly. ‘I’d turn him into my slave, my skeleton slave. Fucking hell... Look at those lips... I’d—’

He falls silent abruptly as Saga walks across the room, stops in one corner and watches the television. It’s a repeat of the European ice-skating championship in Sheffield. The sound and picture alike are made worse by the reinforced glass. She can feel the man on the sofa looking at her, but doesn’t meet his gaze.

‘I’d whip him first,’ he goes on, still facing Saga. ‘I’d make him really scared, like a whore... I mean, fucking hell...’

He coughs, leans back, closes his eyes as if waiting for pain to pass, feels his neck with his hand, then lies there panting.

Jurek Walter is still striding along on the running machine. He looks bigger and stronger than she had imagined. There’s an artificial palm in a pot next to the machine, and its dusty leaves sway as he walks.

Saga looks round for somewhere to hide the microphone, preferably away from the television so as not to interfere with its reception of other voices. The back of the sofa would make sense, but she can’t really imagine Jurek is the sort to sit and watch television.

The man on the sofa tries to get up, and looks as though he’s about to throw up from the effort. He cups his hand over his mouth and swallows a few times before turning back to watch television again.

‘Start with the legs,’ he says. ‘Cut everything off, peel the skin away, muscles, sinew... he can keep his feet so he can walk quietly...’

Jurek stops the running machine and leaves the room without giving either of them so much as a glance. The other patient slowly gets up.

‘Zyprexa makes you feel like shit... and Stemetil doesn’t work on me, it just fucks my insides up...’

Saga stays where she is for a little while, facing the television, watching as the figure skater speeds up and hearing the sound of skates cutting across the ice. She can feel the other patient’s staring eyes as he slowly approaches.

‘My name’s Bernie Larsson,’ he says in an intimate voice. ‘They don’t think I can fuck with all the bastard Suprefact in my system, but they don’t know a fucking thing...’

He jabs his finger in her face, but she stands her ground, her heart pounding.

‘They don’t know a fucking thing,’ he repeats. ‘They’re so fucking brain-damaged...’

He falls silent, staggers aside and burps loudly. Saga is thinking that she might be able to place the microphone in the artificial palm next to the running machine.

‘What’s your name?’ Bernie asks, panting.

She doesn’t answer, just stands there with her eyes lowered, looking towards the television, thinking that her time is running out. Bernie walks behind her back and quickly sticks his hand round and pinches her hard on the nipple. She pushes his hand away and feels anger start to bubble up inside her.

‘Little Snow White,’ he smiles with his sweaty face. ‘What’s the matter with you? Can I feel your head? It looks so fucking soft. Like a shaved cunt...’

From the little she’s seen of Jurek Walter, the running machine is what he’s most interested in inside the dayroom. He was on it for at least an hour, then he went straight back into his room.

Saga walks slowly over to the running machine and steps up onto it. Bernie follows her, biting a fingernail and pulling off a sharp fragment. Sweat is dripping from his face onto the dirty vinyl floor.

‘Do you shave your cunt? You have to do that, yeah?’

Saga turns and stares at him intently. His eyelids are heavy, his eyes have a drugged look about them, his blond moustache hides the scar left by a cleft palate.

‘You never touch me again,’ she replies.

‘I can kill you,’ he says, scratching her neck with his sharpened nail.

She feels the wound sting as a loud voice echoes from the loudspeaker:

‘Bernie Larsson, step back.’

He tries to touch her between the legs as the doors open and a guard with a baton comes in. Bernie moves away from Saga and holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

‘No touching,’ the guard says sternly.

‘OK, I know, fucking hell.’

Bernie feels his way wearily over the armrest of the sofa and sits down heavily, then shuts his eyes and belches.

Saga gets off the running machine and turns to the guard.

‘I want to see a legal ombudsman,’ she says.

‘Stay where you are,’ the guard says, glancing at her.

‘Can you pass on the message?’

Without replying, the guard goes over to the airlock and is let out. It’s as if she hadn’t said anything, as if her words had stopped mid-air before reaching him.

Saga turns away and slowly approaches the artificial palm. She sits down on the edge of the running machine, right beside it, and looks at one of its lower leaves. The underneath isn’t too dirty and the glue on the microphone will firm up in four seconds.